verbs

I've been saying the Sh'ma daily for years (including the paragraphs that follow, though mostly with the Reform filter). I've known enough Hebrew to understand, broadly, what I'm looking at for at least a few years, and now, of course, I'm studying the language in more detail. Even so, because I learned the meaning first from the English translation and only later from the Hebrew, I was slow to pick up on something. Until, err, last week.

English needs more verb forms, like it used to have. Specifically, it needs both singular and plural "you".

The first paragraph after the Sh'ma (v'ahavta...) is translated "you shall love God with all your heart, with all your soul, etc etc". That's all singular "you", and both verbs and possessive nouns carry number so that's pretty darn clear. This is the intimate, one-on-one directive from God.

Then, however, it moves on to the plural you -- you will receive rain in its season, etc, and you shall remember the exodus and do the mitzvot, and so on. If I didn't know anything about Hebrew, this change in number would completely elude me. Lots of Jews don't know a lot about Hebrew, rely on the English translations of everything, and, presumably, miss this.

I knew at some level that this happens, that the blessings after the Sh'ma speak to us both individually and corporately. But somehow I didn't make the connection at the deep level that produces "aha" moments. And then one night last week, pretty randomly, it jumped off the page at me.

It might not be very dignified for the siddur to say "y'all shall remember the exodus" etc, but it might be a public service.